Posted on 04/03/2008 3:30:11 PM PDT by kiriath_jearim
WASHINGTON (AP) - A government crash test of the 2008 Smart Fortwo micro car, the fuel- sipping vehicle that made its debut in the United States this year, found a safety concern in side-impact testing, officials said Thursday.
During the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration side test on the Smart two-door, the driver door unlatched and opened. The government said that could increase the likelihood of a driver or passenger being ejected from the 8-foot, 8-inch vehicle.
NHTSA, however, still gave the car its top score of five stars in side testing because of the ability of the car to protect the driver and passenger from injuries in a crash.
Rae Tyson, a NHTSA spokesman, said the rating is based on the level of protection that the vehicle provides to occupants, but it wanted to note a potential safety implication.
"Given the amount of attention on smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles in general and this vehicle specifically, we wanted to try to get the vehicle tested and the results out there as quickly as possible," Tyson said.
Ken Kettenbeil, a Smart spokesman, said the vehicle was designed to receive a four-star crash rating from U.S. regulators and the results were consistent with their expectations and similar tests in Europe. He called the safety concern in the side crash an "anomaly."
In other NHTSA tests, the Fortwo received four out of five stars in the front-end crash on the driver's side. On the passenger side, it received three out of five stars, meaning the passenger would face a 21 percent to 35 percent chance of serious injury.
In rollovers, the Fortwo received 3 out of 5 stars and had a 21 percent risk of rollover.
Smart, a division of Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz brand, began selling the cars in the United States in January.
Test results from the new micro car have been highly anticipated in the auto industry because of the vehicle's miniature size and concerns that a driver or passenger would be more vulnerable in a crash.
The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a Virginia-based organization that also conducts crash tests, is completing testing on the Fortwo and is expected to release its findings later this month.
The French-made vehicle, which has been sold for about a decade in Europe, has a steel safety cage and four standard air bags, including two in front and two on the sides to protect the head and abdomen. It also has standard electronic stability control, which is designed to stop vehicles from swerving off the road.
In a December interview, Smart USA President Dave Schembri said every showroom would display the vehicle's tridion safety cell, which protects occupants in a steel housing.
"We're taking the safety story, and we're telling it right on the showroom floor every day," Schembri said. "Because once you walk people through that ... you get it, because you can see it. It acts very much like a NASCAR racing cage."
The 1,800-pound car gets 33 miles per gallon in the city and 41 miles per gallon on the highway. Smart has marketed the vehicle as a good choice for consumers grappling with high gas prices and urban congestion but unwilling to sacrifice safety.
And talk about ease of parking...I figure i’m not going to bother with a little coffin like this “smart” car, if I’m gonna go, I’m at least going out with a little bit of style...
Man, I want one of these
so bad, I could spit.
Just not in the cards right now.
Damn I miss twist'n the wrist and tilt'n the horizon.
I got smacked 3 times by cars running stop signs and once head on by a drunk in a car in the wrong lane. I finally had to give it up when my left leg wouldn’t support me at a stop. I had been putting 20-30k annually on my 2 wheelers for a quarter century and the averages got me good. I carry quite a bit of surgical steel and titanium now and when I die I will not be buried or cremated. My survivors will take the remains to the scrap metal dealer. That is instead of life insurance. I am happy that the commodities “boom” has quit. My wife has been quoting me metals prices from the WSJ. She used to think WSJ was terribly boring.
You can drive one off the lot in some places, so many people have cancelled their orders.
I’ve seen two of these on the road in San Francisco in just the last few days. Looks like this overpriced, dangerous little car will be a hit around here with the free-spending liberals.
12 grand isnt overpriced
It’s overpriced for what you’re getting. Consider that much more substantial, full-featured vehicles (e.g., Toyota Yaris, Chevy Aveo, Honda Fit, etc.) are available in the same price range.
I’ve been to more traffic collisions than I care to remember, and those I dread the most are the “car vs. motorcycle” variety. Then again, you’ve got ‘car vs. bicycle” and “car vs. ped”, and “car vs. building”.
None of it’s pretty.
Then you have the “motorcycle vs. bridge”, and “motorcycle vs. Mountain” single vehicle collisions, so we two wheeler’s aren’t always banged up by the cell-phone talking, beer-swilling cage “drivers”. Sometimes we are perfectly capable of jacking ourselves up without any outside help at all....
I always walked away from the ones i did myself and usually managed to make the bike go again. Whenever Bubba ran the stop sigh, etc, I got scraped up off the road. I was DOA after the head-on and pushed aside because the ER was full of 2 major car crashes. A couple of med students saw the stiff on the gurney and decided to practice their life-saving techniques and the damn thing breathed. So I got pushed back into ER for treatment.
Your date has arrived.
They had one in Seattle that some one orderd, however the color combo is ugly. Red and silver with red interior. Looks real bad. however Seattle is a tree hugger city,and it went fairly soon. These cars are in demand. In 2005 a company here called the green car company was selling these cars for 29k. they were importing them from Canada. That is where I first drove one, what a riot, however I was not willing to pay 29k for it. I decided to wait untill smart started to deliver to the U.S. My price with heated leather heated seats is right at 14.5K
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